


Silence and Sound

by catholicschoolgirl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 07:59:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catholicschoolgirl/pseuds/catholicschoolgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry starts seeing Zayn in his nightmares right before he and Louis are assigned to a case investigating strange adaptations of the Unforgivable Curses. And that's just the start of it.</p><p>Or the one where Harry is an expat who became an Auror to make a name for himself, Louis is his determined partner and ex-boyfriend, Liam is Auror of the Year, Niall is very likely up to something illegal, and Zayn is only one of many mysteries lurking on the ninth floor at the Ministry of Magic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silence and Sound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [handcversbruise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/handcversbruise/gifts).



> Dedicated to Fee because everything I do is for Fee, pretty much. Title taken from One Direction's "You and I."

There is nothing quite like standing in the middle of a burning building, bodies wrecked from prolonged exposure to the Cruciatus curse, to bring two people together. Harry coughed, throat choked from smoke, and turned to his companion, smiling, dimples on full display even though his bottom lip was split in two.

“I'm glad that if I'm going to die, it'll be with you,” Harry croaked. His companion turned to look at him, his beautiful tan face streaked with dirt, hazel eyes wide, the absolute epitome of distress, and he opened his mouth to say –

 

Harry Styles blinked awake, wincing at the pain exploding behind his eyes. He turned, neck protesting, and sat up in his office chair, ignoring the worried look from his best friend and Auror partner, Louis Tomlinson.

“Another nightmare?” Louis asked, chewing on his quill. Harry nodded slowly and Louis hummed, his pretty, elfish face lined with concern. “I didn't even realize you had fallen asleep. Do you have a headache? There should still be some of that potion in your desk.”

Harry fumbled with the lock to his bottom drawer, pulling at it before he remembered, oh yeah, _magic_ , and grabbed his wand to spell it open. Buried underneath some files, an old scarf from his ex-girlfriend that he really needed to return, and a few drafts was a flask filled with Niall Horan's secret home remedy potion. It wasn't strictly legal, but it knocked out a migraine like nothing else, so Harry kept it hidden and readily accessible. Harry took a sharp sip of the potion and immediately felt it zap away at the thundering pain in his head. Harry sighed, content, and slipped it back into his drawer.

“You really should go to St. Mungo's for that,” Louis said, drumming his fingers on the desk. “It might be a lingering effect of The Incident.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I've had nightmares and headaches all my life, Lou. I seriously doubt it has anything to do with The Incident last month.”

Louis tsked like he didn't believe Harry, because he didn't. Harry could theoretically understand why – it would be, and was, easy to blame anything bad in their lives on The Incident. Louis had only just dumped his most recent boyfriend and told the poor lad that it was because of The Incident rather than just telling the guy it was because Louis thought he was a twat.

But it was honestly just supposed to be a routine apprehension, some guy going around hexing his Muggle neighbors as though that was still a legitimate sport. He'd already been called in a few times, but this go around he had hexed a teenage girl, so Head Auror Cowell sent Harry and Louis to go deal with it and just bring the guy to Azkaban. How were Louis and Harry supposed to know that the madman was also experimenting on aforementioned Muggle neighbors and had turned a whole lot of them into chickens and was using them in an underground cock ring? And what was Harry _supposed_ to do when he and Louis stumbled upon the cockfight? Apparently he wasn't supposed to turn everyone involved in the cock ring into chickens themselves, but that's what Harry and Louis had done. It was very impressive Transfiguration, Head Auror Cowell admitted, saying that their marks in Transfiguration were most certainly deserved, but he slapped them with a three month probation anyway, saying that they needed to learn “maturity” and “self-restraint” and adding, “Good Lord, why can't you two be more like Auror Payne?” Now they were stuck doing desk work, which like – fine. Desk work was perfectly all right if you only had to do it for a week or two. But five weeks in? Desk work was the worst. Which was why Harry just tended to sleep. And have nightmares, apparently.

Harry groaned and put his head back on the desk. “Is it lunchtime yet?”

“We've got about forty-five minutes,” Louis affirmed. “But I've got plans for lunch today, so you'll have to amuse yourself.”

“What?” Harry whined. “Oh, come off it, Lou. You know I haven't got any friends here at the Ministry!”

Louis fixed Harry with a _look_ , but Harry wasn't even trying to be a wet blanket, or a cockblock, or whatever – Harry wasn't exactly sure which expression was the most appropriate in this particular context. Harry honestly didn't have a lot of friends at the Ministry besides Louis, and _they_ had only known each other for something like six months, briefly dating for one of those. Harry's Auror class had only had five graduates, one of the smallest since the Battle of Hogwarts, and Harry just didn't get on with any of the other people at the Academy, so Head Auror Cowell had paired Harry with Louis, who had graduated two years earlier and whose partner had recently left the department to become an Unspeakable. “Don't make me regret my decision,” Cowell had warned, already looking resigned to regretting his decision, before shooing them out of his office.

“Styles,” Louis had said, studying Harry's face as they made their way down to their new cubicle. “I'm sorry, mate, but your face doesn't look familiar to me at all. Were you in Hufflepuff or something?”

“Er,” Harry replied, fidgeting a bit. “I didn't go to Hogwarts.”

“Homeschooled?” Louis asked then, his face sympathetic.

“Er, no. I graduated from Beauxbâtons.”

Louis stared at Harry. “You said that all super Frenchy.”

Harry shrugged. “It is French. I speak French.”

“I think I would've preferred it if you were homeschooled, actually.” Louis made a face. “Like, really, Beauxbatons? That's basically the wizarding world equivalent of Hufflepuff.”

Harry sighed. “Let me guess then. Slytherin house, right?”

Louis grinned, straightening his shoulders and smirking at Harry. “The Ancient Arms of Tomlinson have been in Slytherin for generations.”

“So you don't associate with half-bloods then?” Harry asked, stopping suddenly in the hallway to glare at Louis.

“No, don't be daft,” Louis replied, wrinkling his nose. “The best wizards have been half-bloods and Muggleborns – I mean, from Merlin all the way down to Albus Dumbledore, then through to Hermione Granger and Harry Potter, even. Fuck, I'm best friends with _Liam Payne,_ who is a tremendous tosser and amazing Auror. Those half and Muggleborns – they don't take magic for granted, you understand?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, relaxing a bit. “Sorry.”

“No, it's fine,” Louis answered breezily. “You'll see soon, Styles. All those old Slytherin stereotypes are just that – old stereotypes.”

And Harry – well, he had definitely seen that with Louis. Louis who was all about pranks and achieving justice, embodying so many of the attributes of Gryffindor house that it made Harry a bit dizzy, reconciling it with all of the things he had heard about Slytherins growing up. And Louis was great – even that month where they had disastrously tried to date – it was all great. But Harry hadn't really met anyone else. It was hard – a few of his Beauxbâtons friends were living in London now, part of a swelling community of children who had left the UK during the war but were now returning for jobs, further education, excitement, or out of a misguided sense of patriotism, but for the most part, he didn't know anyone in the country, only a handful of people from the Academy and some of Louis' friends. People just seemed to be so stuck in their high school cliques, though, Hogwarts houses and loyalties that Harry had only heard and read things about, so they weren't too receptive to that weird Auror who had gone to school in France.

“Why can't I just go to lunch with you?” Harry continued. “I don't want to eat alone.”

“I can't, Hazza, I'm sorry,” Louis answered apologetically. “I'm meeting with Zayn today.”

“Zayn? Zayn Malik?” Harry repeated. “Your old partner?”

Harry had been trying to get the full story on Zayn Malik for _ages_. Zayn and Louis were those type of friends that Harry used to think didn't really exist outside of books – grew up together, were sorted into the same house at Hogwarts, both graduated with amazing NEWTS and immediately enrolled into the Academy. They were a pretty hotshot team, too, from what Harry had gathered from not so subtly asking around, but then six months ago Zayn suddenly put in a transfer and left the department to become an Unspeakable. Apparently it had been a huge deal, a source of endless rumors and speculation, but nobody quite knew _why_ Zayn had left, particularly when he was well on his way to winning Auror of the Year, a title that would now undoubtedly go to Liam Payne. Harry had never met Zayn, never saw any pictures of him, wasn't even introduced to him at Louis' huge birthday bash a few weeks ago, but Niall Horan, Harry's only other friend at the Ministry and his one singular contact in the Department of Mysteries, had described Zayn as “ridiculously good-looking, ridiculously smart, and one of the most natural Unspeakables I have ever come across.”

Louis didn't really talk about Zayn all that often, though, even though Harry knew they were still close, and Louis _definitely_ didn't look like he was in the mood to divulge any big secrets now, if his glare was any sort of hint. “Harry,” he warned and Harry threw his hands up in surrender.

“Fine, fine, I'll just see if Niall wants some Nando's or something.”

Louis rolled his eyes. “There are perfectly good wizarding establishments you could go to for lunch, you know.”

Harry shrugged, but if Louis was going to go and have pureblood tea time with Zayn, then Harry was going to have a half-blood fast food frenzy with Niall.

 

About five minutes to their lunch break, Harry gave up any pretense of working and began aimlessly walking around the floor, waiting for a memo from Niall to come through. It was highly likely that Niall would be too busy to leave the building – Unspeakable stuff was serious business and Niall couldn't ever even talk about it, which was frustrating as all hell – so Harry was a bit distracted, thinking about what he would do for lunch if Niall wasn't able to come out, when he walked straight into someone.

“Ah, sorry, mate,” Harry said, straightening up and laying a hand on the other person's shoulder to stop the guy from toppling over. “Was too lost in my own thoughts, there.”

“No problem,” the other person drawled, voice deep, rich. “Could you point me to Auror Tomlinson's new cubicle?” Harry nodded a bit absently but then Harry got a good look at this person – and just. Harry felt like he got hit by a Bludger. Warm, olive-toned skin. Thick, black hair immaculately styled into a quiff. A smattering of facial hair and hazel eyes that reminded Harry of the wood-paneled floors at Beauxbâtons. Thin underneath his robes – stylishly cut gray ones that made Harry feel drab in comparison, although the man was wearing a red button-down and black slacks underneath, with a pin designating access to the ninth floor fixed to the collar of his shirt – broad-shouldered. An overall gorgeous human being, but something about him was familiar, almost like Harry had met him before. Harry's brain suddenly, and uselessly supplied a bit of French for the occasion – _avoir le coup de foudre_. Love at first sight. Getting struck by lightning. Staring at a really good-looking guy like a fucking idiot, too in awe of his beauty, his presence, his unexplained familiarity, to answer his basic question.

“You're Zayn Malik,” Harry blurted.

The amazingly attractive guy sighed. “You must be Harry Styles.”

Harry grinned, already dialing the charm up to ten. “Normally people don't start sighing my name until after they've known me for a few weeks.”

“Are you French?” the guy – Zayn – asked. “You've got an accent. Louis didn't mention that.”

“Louis talks about me?” Harry preened before Zayn coughed awkwardly, raising his eyebrows. “Oh, er. Well, I mean. My mum and stepdad are both expats – managed to read all the signs and get out of the country before You-Know-Who took over the Ministry. There's kind of a big British wizarding community in Paris, people who left before and during the war and decided to stay. I was born in the UK but I grew up in France and went to school there.”

“So you came back to London to become an Auror?” Zayn asked, crossing his arms over his chest and examining Harry. “Fascinating. I would _love_ to get a hand on your training files.”

Harry opened his mouth to make a highly inappropriate comment on what _he_ would love to get a hand on when a familiar voice screeched, “Zayn!” and came barreling down the hallway, running into Zayn at full speed. Zayn laughed, wrapping his arms around Louis and shoving Louis to the ground, falling on top of him to do this half-hug, half-wrestling thing. Louis kneed Zayn in the ribs and tossed him off, before standing and dusting imaginary dirt off his own robe. “I see you've met Harry, then.”

“You never said he was French,” Zayn said, taking his wand out of his pocket and waving it over his ribs, no doubt to assess whether any real damage had been done.

Louis shrugged. “He's not, though. He's just as British as you and I.”

“He went to Beauxbatons.”

“He's slightly less British than you and I,” Louis amended.

“Harry is still standing right here,” Harry reminded them before a memo from Niall dropped right into his hands. Harry tore it open and ah, thank God – Niall was free for lunch today. Nando's it was.

“Is that a memo from Niall Horan?” Zayn asked, quirking his head to the side. “His magical signature is really distinct.”

“'His magical signature is so distinct,'” Louis mocked. “Being an Unspeakable has changed you, dear Zayn. You were never a huge show-off in front of pretty boys before.”

Zayn bristled and Louis grinned, grabbing Zayn by the elbow and steering him away. “We best be off, Harry. I'll see you after lunch!”

“Yeah, see you,” Harry said. “Nice to meet you, Zayn!”

Zayn gave Harry a small half-wave before letting Louis manhandle him to the lifts. Harry watched them go and turned to grab his wallet from their cubicle. Harry was halfway through his portobello mushroom hamburger at Nando's, half-listening to Niall describing some new girl in the the Department of Magical Games and Sports, before he suddenly remembered where he had seen Zayn before.

His nightmare.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm thinking I'll update this every 2-4 weeks since I've got two other WIP's I need to wrap up. Thanks for reading, and if you want to get a hold of me you can also reach out to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/xtracalidopechk) or [Tumblr](http://catholicschoolgirl.tumblr.com).


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